Explore resources and toolkits developed by local, state, and national organizations who are invested in supporting and expanding our reach in afterschool and summer programs.
Finding Community via Afterschool Networks
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Created by Nebraska’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers, ConnectNow is an online space intended to bring together afterschool, out-of-school, and summer learning professionals, educators, community partners, and advocates across Nebraska.
Advocating for and Sustaining Your Program
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The Afterschool Alliance’s fifth edition of America After 3PM (2025) provides national and state data about the need and support for afterschool in the US and Nebraska. Use this dashboard to advocate for support for your program!
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Nebraska Department of Education’s NEP data is available by state, district, and school. View and download attendance data, graduation rates, test scores, and more.
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This online calculator works like a student loan or mortgage calculator. It lets you determine the costs of a variety of options for high-quality afterschool programs and the summer portions of year-round programs.
Engaging Clubs, Curricula, and Play
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Free, hands-on curricula for all ages and sorted by topic area. Most of the lessons and activities designed by college students via our "Design Studio" process.
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A database of over 170 hands-on engineering activities for K-12 youth, which you can filter by grade level, topic area, and total activity time.
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Find free K-12 activities, collections, and resources designed specifically for the afterschool space on Mizzen Education.
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Connect with this free Nebraska Department of Education resource to help K-5 students learn about agriculture, food, health, and nutrition. You could even learn how to build and maintain a garden for your program!
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Explore hundreds of games by group size, available space and equipment, appropriate ages, and developmental skills. These games are designed to keep kids in grades K-6+ engaged and playing!
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Free, hands-on, K-12 science resources and activities for home and school with new resources uploaded weekly.
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This free program was designed for students in grades K-8 to connect students to science, social studies, math, language arts, nutrition and more all while tracking their physical activity to “walk” across the state of Nebraska!
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Youth Engineering Solutions (YES) is the free, high-quality, standards-aligned pre-K–8 engineering and computer science curriculum from the Museum of Science, Boston.
Staff Development
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This on-demand distance education system provides professional development online for afterschool and summer staff anytime you are ready to learn! Courses are free, and certificates are available upon completion for a minimal fee.
Sign Up: https://od.bkc.psu.edu/user/sign_in
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A professional development resource for out-of-school time (OST) professionals, Click2Science is designed to build higher-quality OST STEM programs by giving frontline staff the skills they need to create positive STEM learning experiences with youth.
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This professional development model was designed specifically for OST supervisors who face the unique challenges of the OST workforce: limited time for training, a high number of part-time staff, significant levels of staff turnover, and working with staff who haven't had formal youth development training.
